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History

The building, in which the Museum of Sports and Tourism in Karpacz is located, was built by inhabitants, who did community service, on the area given by the commune from 1932 to 36. Since very beginning, the place was dedicated for the museum. A local community was proud of the long history of the region and achievements and were happy to present them to guests who came from Lower Silesia and other areas of Europe.

It was so called a regional museum, very similar to those which were established in rich towns of Lower Silesia. In most cases, there were exhibitions dedicated to regional issues. After the Second World War, the museum was available for visitors.

The regional museum is located next to school, in a building that was especially prepared for this purpose. On the ground floor, there are exhibits whereas on the first floor – a flat of a caretaker. The museum compounds of two smaller and one bigger room and a long hall. The first room presents a Silesian hut as it looked one hundred years ago. There are furniture and other essential tools. The most interesting are: a huge butter maker and the unknown in the central Poland type of resinous wood to light up the room. In addition, there are German books from 18th and 19th centuries, old bibles and regional songbooks. It worth mentioning “Colloquia oder Tischreden" by Luter from 1568.In the second room, there are prints of plants from the Great Mountains as well as stones. There are also three sculptures made of wood: Liczyrzepa, a woman who is rinsing the gold and a woman who is picking up medicinal herbs.

In the third room, there are various types of skies, sledges and winter rockets (called “karple”) and also a big model of the Great Mountains (made of plywood and plaster).Except from all things mention above there are various types of scoops, the wedding bed and dishes etc in the room. In the hall, there is a laboratory-assistants’ kitchen with all tools which were used by them. There is also a laboratory and at the same time a warehouse. In this hall, there is also a great hat that laboratory-assistants were wearing during fairs when selling their concoctions. There is so called “alrauna" (mandragora officinalis) in the jar — a root that looked like a human being. According to old tales – possession of the root brought good luck, (the novel by H. H. Ewersa “Alraune").The museum is worth visiting!

Unfortunately, the museum was soon closed and all exhibits were donated to other institutions in the country. The building was used for residential purposes.

For many years, Karpacz inhabitants were trying to reactivate the museum. The proofs are in the local newspapers from that time. Among others the article from 1959 in a weekly magazine “Nowiny Jeleniogórskie” "A dispute about mandrake root" (No 5/45) and “When do we have a museum in Karpacz?” (No 30/70).

In the first one, you may read:” The exhibits that proof a Slavic past of the Sudety Mountains vanished (…) What is the reason? Allegedly, a foreign character of exhibits. I am writing “allegedly”, because contrary to the opinion of the management of the Silesian Museum in Wroclaw, the case is much different. All exhibits, that were taken away from Karpacz, have been not scraped but are still presented successfully by museums in Jelenia Góra, Kamienna Góra, the Sports Museum in Warsaw and, what is surprising, by the Silesian Museum in Wroclaw... It is not a matter of satisfying somebody’s ambitions but something more important – giving people a chance to get familiar with the Sudety’s Mountains history. The exhibits spoke for themselves. All folk clothes collected in the inside of a Łużycka hut were an undisputed proof of a relationship with neighbouring Slavic lands: Wielkopolska and Łużyce. Women’s bonnets are almost identical with those known in Silesia region. The same statement is true when talking about house equipment, pottery etc. In the museum, there was the only department that presented herbalism and laboratory assistants’ works.”

Here, among jars, ointments and bunch of herbs, there was a great mandrake root. A trace of real, undisputed history of Karpacz – in the past called Płonica - from 15th century, simply vanished. It is a pity. Skipping the time, when local people took care of coil burning, shepherding or woodcutting, the exhibits illustrated 200 years of practice of herbalists and laboratory assistants, who produced concoctions for all possible diseases.

Actions, in order to create in Karpacz a new museum, were taken in 1971. The opening ceremony of the Museum of Sports and Tourism in Karpacz, as a branch of the Museum of Sports and Tourism in Warsaw, took place on 3rd September 1974.

From 1st January 2003 the Museum of Sports and Tourism in Karpacz is an independent cultural institution of the Lower Silesia council.